Podcasting

Authoritative sources don't always get it right. The New Oxford American Dictionary's definition of podcast, "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player," is not very good. Wikipedia's definition is better: "A podcast is a digital media file, or a related collection of such files, which is distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players and personal computers."

So, posting an audio file on a website for downloading does not make it a podcast. Distribution via a feed (RSS or Atom) does.

I tried the three search engines listed. Yahoo is going out of business: "Yahoo! apologizes deeply, but we will be closing down the Podcasts site on Oct. 31, 2007" Yahoo is in a struggle to survive and Jerry Yang is chopping many money losers to focus on core mission. The other two didn't find TED Talks, a great series, so bah, humbug! to them. Again, the problem isn't discovery. The problem is the incredible surplus of riches and lack of time to enjoy them.


I use iTunes to subscribe to podcasts. Favorites: WGBH, TED Talks, and the BSO. I use podcasts the sames way I use RSS feeds: they are reminders of great stuff to occasionally revisit. I'm sure my next car's radio will have an iPod connector, so I'll probably use podcasts more then.